Saturday, April 13, 2013

The Real Ghostbusters: The Collect Call of Cathulhu

Way back in 1987 one of the more fun Cthulhu Mythos pastiches turned
up, in of all places, on a Saturday morning cartoon show. The Real
Ghostbusters was an animated series based on the hit movie,
Ghostbusters. The animation was done mostly in Japan and the show had a
very Anime look to it as a result. It was fairly well written for a
'kids' show and I thought it managed to catch some of the oddball feel
of the original movie.
Season two brought the surprisingly well researched episode, The
Collect Call of Cathulhu. (Not sure why the slight change in spelling.)
The Episode begins with New York City Library director Clark Ashton
convincing one of his colleagues, Ted Klein, to display the Library's
copy of the Necronomicon. The loathsome book is stolen that very night.
The Ghostbusters are called in and soon are fighting tentacled horrors
in the New York City sewers.
They consult an expert from Miskatonic University named Alice Derleth,
who helps them find a cult who are attempting to use the Necronomicon to
raise Great Cathulhu from his eons long sleep. Alice even quotes the
line about "That which is not dead can eternal lie..." from The Call of
Cthulhu. Unfortunately when various spawn of Cathulhu show up, the boys
find that their proton packs won't kill the creatures. They end up
seeking a way to stop Cathulhu and his minions by reading through back
issues of Weird Tales. H.P. Lovecraft is mentioned by name and there are
more Mythos references than you can throw a Shoggoth at, including a
Shoggoth! I'll leave the rest for you to discover yourself. The episode
is available for your viewing pleasure on youtube and because I am your
pal and enjoy sharing nifty stuff with you, the link is right here.